Gordon - Art School Journey (Term 3)

[Gordon003]

Much appreciated for the kind words, @Lockenheim

Btw, I read through your blog and have a question in regard about your sketch line.

I noticed that your sketching line is pretty thin and mostly is only 1 stroke, something I wouldn't say the same for my sketching on figure drawing. Do you contribute this to your drawing line practice or your meticulous slow speed? One of my biggest weakness is drawing line too quickly (hence the "scratch") and I'm trying to remedy that now.

[Lockenheim]

Hi Gordon, sorry I just saw this. So my lines are by far way above all my other skills for sure. I really really worked line quality hard when I first started the program. I would spend about 2-3 hours per day doing the pen control exercise from chapter one for about a month. That helps a lot. Also on all of the early assignments I was so meticulous about my lines I would just do them until I got them right. For example a cylinder tracing assignment when I started would take me about 4-6 hours to do one because I would undo so often. So I really put a lot of effort into improving them.

Other things that have helped me are drawing from the shoulder mostly, or elbow. I zoom in a lot so I can make a big sweeping motion with my elbow. In regards to speed when I make my line I draw it very quickly. It is very hard to get a clean line when you go slow in my opinion. But it can take me a lot of time to make line art because I have to undo frequently. The lines don't take me nearly as long now but they took me forever when I first started.

The main thing is just to force yourself to have these lines. Don't allow yourself to make thin petting lines. Do one line, confidently and if you miss it undo until you hit it. This will destroy your speed at first, and your quality at first. But it will be worth it in the long run. Hopefully that makes sense if you have any questions let me know!

[Gordon003]

Focus this week (4/4/22 - 10/4/22)

Gonna be more consistent with my blogging. so here we go.

Updates

Continuation of Facial Anatomy

Although I technically finished the facial anatomy course in T2, I decided to rerun everything one more time, starting with the Loomis head construction. At first, I'm still struggling with medium-extreme perspective so I decided to have a look at ALL POSSIBLE angles of the head construction.

One particular method I found from here is the usage of circle to set up the head construction, so I don't need to worry about drawing the circle in the first place. Here's my current work on head construction so far.

I will continue to work on head construction but later move on to ears this week.

Start on Perspective (2)

Since I finished watching and understanding facial anatomy, I decided to move onto perspective. But I kinda lost my knowledge of previous perspective knowledge so I was mostly reconnecting with 1 and 2 point perspective.

Next week, I hope to have a go at 3 points perspective.

Weekly TD Sketches

This week, I decide to challenge by doing a daily quick sketches of my favourite cartoon, Total Drama. No lineart, no colouring. Just a quick sketch and a general test on not only my pencil skill but my shading too. So far, so good.

If there's one I relearnt, it's simply to have fun. All those learning doesn't make Gordon a happy artist, lmao.

Figure Drawing

I slow down on my figure drawing from Discord for now. This week, I did some figure but try to do shading too which I feel is the next logical step since I'm doing blending too in Photoshop (II). I also tried some basic muscle anatomy by looking at other artist's work and practice by tracing and understanding why/how they do it.

Feel for Next Week

I feel I need to work more on my blending and shading personally but this can be incrementally improved by each work so I wouldn't focus too much on it.

I will continue to rework on my facial anatomy while learning some perspective at night time.

Thanks for reading and any constructive criticism are welcome.

[Gordon003]

That's an interesting perspective to "force" yourself to draw line in one stroke. I'm surprised at how long you spent simply on just pen control... really question myself on my speed and progression check. Thx for your comment!

[Lockenheim]

No problem, I don't know if that strategy would work for everyone depends on the level of focus you can generate for a repetitive task. But well worth it!

[Gordon003]

Focus on this week (11/4/22 - 17/4/22)

Sorry about the late response as I was out on a family holiday for the whole Easter break... which is basically a long trip driven by me.

Anyway, here I go with W2 of my weekly blog.

Update

Facial Anatomy

In this week, I continued to work and review on head construction and later started on ear construction. But due to impending deadline of uni assignment (which is done thx god) and the family holiday drive which I already mentioned, I didn't much art study as I hoped before.

Anyway, I continued to practice head construction by focusing on head perspective in ALL angles. This is done via observing and retracing head parts that I struggle with (e.g. extreme left upper angle). A particular problem is the side part of the head but I later got used to it as I keep observing it.

Ear-wise, I admitted that I skip through ear construction too quick as it looks simpler when tracing it. However, when I tried to draw it without any tracing and tried to construct it, I realise that it was harder than expected, in particular the inside of the ear and the side view of the ear which looks like a hat like mentioned in the video. So I was kinda glad that I get to go back and review on it.

Weekly TD Sketches

I continued the challenges of doing a daily sketches of Total Drama arts. Going back to previous week, I acknowledged that I went too long on my drawing as the original purpose was to reignite and maintain my drawing habit at the start, not to showcase my art skill.

With that mindset, I later become looser and not worry too much about key measurement I used to take when actually drawing to the fullest (e.g. proportion, construction) and just take this as a warmup.

So far, so good. Kept my drawing to max 1 hour so that I can start my programming job in a better mindset and have art practice to keep my art hand working.

Holiday Sketch

Even though I was outside for most of the time, I took this time to do some non-technology drawing. Not gonna lie, I kinda forgot how to took my time when drawing so it was a pleasant experience to do some paper drawing which taking my time.

Look toward Next Week

Yes, I haven't done any figure drawing at all which is something I want to work on too.

But I have too much art interest so I need to find a delicate measure between art practice (facial anatomy, figure drawing and perspective) and project (total drama art) to ensure that I don't burnout this week.

I also need to work on perspective too... my god I have way too much work lmao.

Proposed goal this week:

• Continue to do weekly quick TD doodles
• Review Nose construction and blending practice
• Review 2 and 3 points perspective
• Have fun lmao

Anyway, that's my goal for this week. Don't have much time since I posted this on Tuesday night! Better get going...

[Apath]

Hello Gordon! I rarely comment on any art blogs due to my lack of social skills, but I just want to let you know that you're doing an amazing job on these studies! Specifically your gesture drawings! ^^ Keep it up.^^

[Lockenheim]

Really nice work! Especially with some of those warped and twisted shapes. Those arn't easy!

[Gordon003]

Focus on this week (18/4/22 - 24/4/22)

Week 3 of this blog and I got a uni test to get ready for next week. But once done, it's all art at night time!

Update

Overall Art School

I decided to group both facial anatomy and perspective together since I haven't done much to it this week. Not only I was busy with uni work but I also have an upcoming TD project for the next months.

But once I finish my uni studies early next month, I should be able to continue my art studies with minor trouble. But as of this moment, I feel it's better to temporarily stop my art studies this week and focus on both uni test and personal art project before resuming.

Weekly TD Doodle

Week 3 and I'm struggling to keep this habit in the morning, mainly because I believe that I woke up too late which give zero time to do art doodle between wake up and my primary job. Plus some of them are not doodles as some of them are for my personal art project.

Nevertheless, I'm happy to know that I remain committed to make this a daily habit.

If there's one thing I learnt, it's that I'm becoming more quicker and observant in breaking down the reference pose before converting into cartoony pose. Now, I have a consistent process of making my doodle which is:

1. Break Reference pose into key parts
2. Experiment around on making the cartoonistic version based on the reference
3. Work on the basic skeleton cartoon form
4. Add basic meats/muscle into the skeleton
5. Add extra detail if desired. (e.g. skeleton)

Upcoming TD x NBA Project

This upcoming Total Drama project was based on part 2 seasons. An NBA fan, I wanted to make Total Drama version of NBA but I wasn't able to complete both season due to frustration and art burnout. Although I wanted to do it again, I put some measures to ensure that it won't happen again.

1. Much like my TD doodles, I wouldn't focus too much on getting it "accurate" and "right". Rather, I should encourage to just look at the gesture and not worry too much about the proportion.
2. I set up the background template so that I don't need to keep making from scratch for each playoff.
3. I make a quick sketch of both teams winning so that when I know which team has won, I can just focus on the line art and basic colouring.
4. I would do line art but it wouldn't be accurate as before. Rather, it will be more practice than actual skill.

Wish me luck on that project. I will post it on my weekly blogs.

Look toward Next Week

This week wouldn't be too much on art studies so I won't make much promises aside from getting ready for the final test on next week and starting on my personal art project. Thanks for reading my week 3 blog!

NB: I also revamped my Trello schedule board which contains my personal workload of uni and art. Here's a link to check it out!

https://trello.com/b/DTp48fzl

[Gordon003]

Focus on 2 weeks (25/4/22 - 8/5/22)

Apologise for not blogging on last week as I have university final exam (only 1 so no pressure... kinda) and also was busy doing other stuff.

Despite the fact that I haven't done much art for those 2 weeks, this is the best week on a personal career basis as I managed to secure a ongoing permanent contract with my current company after 2 fixed-terms contract.

With that contract, hopefully I can continue to do art without my parent bickering on why I'm not working. XD

Anyway, I recount my brief art progress in the last 2 weeks.

Update

Art School

Again, haven't done much human anatomy and perspective. It's easy to pinpoint my uni as the problem but it's also my lack of motivation to continue on anatomical studies.

But with university term done and not planning to do it next term (not that serious anymore due to work), I planned to continue more on anatomical work. However, I don't want to go straight into work in fear of burnout.

So, I took a light approach on coming back to my studies:

• Do some basic gesture/figure drawing
• I also bought a book on anatomical studies for motivational purpose and give myself another medium to study at (paper rather than digital)

Doodles

I continue to do doodles albeit not as common as the first 2 weeks. The main reason is the time I did it as I ideally want to do it before my work starts (so around 7 - 9am). However, I often wake up late or not bother to wake up at all so by the time I'm ready to do some doodle, my actual work has started and I can't do the doodle at all.

I also notice that I draw in different colours as I began to draw in any colours aside from black. So far, blue is my preferred sketching colour at the moment.

TD NBA

This is going pretty slowly both because of university schedule and lack of motivation. Initailly, I want to do basketball pose but I eventually understood that not only many people that like TD also likes NBA but also I don't have the interest to do it too.

So to mend that, I decide to not do basketball pose but rather have funny expressive interaction that describes the NBA result rather than an iconic basketball pose which not many people understand.

So far, I only got 2 done but there's a lot more to do as the second round is heating up!

Look toward Next Week

So next week will be more of a revisit than an art study for me. Just try to reengage myself on anatomical studies while working on my personal projects at the same time... at least my uni is done so that's one less stuff to worry about!

So in summary, I will:

• Re-engage on facial anatomical studies (mostly review)
• Re-engage on perspective (review on 1 and 2 points perspective before moving onto 3 points)
• Set up an effective morning art habit
• Just have fun! All works and no fun makes Gordon a dull person.

Anyway, I'm active on Discord so feel free to hit me with a dm if you want to (Gordon003#7031) and thx for reading Week 4-5 blog!

[Lockenheim]

Nice job! Let us know how you like this book it looks interesting!

[Gordon003]

Week Blog #5 (9/5/22 - 15/5/22)

First week without any stoppage or uni... what a time to be alive!

Update

Art School

Not much progress there as I re-engaged on my facial anatomy studies, mostly on nose and mouth anatomy. I rewatched Brunet's video on it and after some practice, found some interesting way of drawing mouth, such as setting up the direction of the mouth. I also tried some shading to give some sense of depth.

For nose anatomy, I haven't done much on it but I will keep on practising it as it's something that frustrates but also intrigues me at the same time.

For figure drawing, I only did 1 this week where I tried more on shading.

TD Doodle

I continue to do TD doodle in the early morning in order to warm up my art hand and also ensure that I did some art if I don't have time later in the day. I wasn't able to do it consistently every day, it does relieve in my mind that I don't need to do art at other times I already did it.

If I had more time, i explored addition in TD styles to make my own style. So for example, I tried to add human muscle anatomy into my work.

TD NBA

Although the NBA is going toward the conference finals, I still haven't finish the first round playoff. Initially I want to finish it as soon as the round is over, I later realised that it will be too much on me (plus I have uni exam) so I did something - relax and have fun.

So rather than just do basketball pose which wasn't that popular with others, I focused more on hilarious pose. Not only it gets somewhat more interest but I also have some fun with it as I don't need to follow TD strict anatomy reference as I get to make my own at my own steady pace.

Next one is the Warriors vs Nuggets which should be done by this week, giving me ample time to do so without compromising me.

Other artworks

I was focusing more on lineart itself as I don't want to use particular tool (e.g. pen tool) to help me do lineart; rather, I want to draw those line manually with the help of stabiliser. To work on it, it mostly involves resketching one of my TD draft and then work on my lineart skill.

Lineart is currently my biggest interest as I think this is the one area I could massively improve on, quality-wise. No need of consistent line width. Have some variety to give it more depth and interest.

Look toward Next Week

So in summary, I will:

• Continue to work and review on facial anatomy (in particular, nose)
• Re-engage on perspective... again
• Continue on art morning habit
• Don't forget to have fun. It's a marathon, not a race.

Another week done but we must keep going! Thx for reading.

[Gordon003]

Oh definitely. This 1974 books has some example of all human anatomy and is on paper too! So no need to keep straining my eye on finer detail.

[Gordon003]

Week Blog #6 (16/5/22 - 22/5/22)

Update

Art School

I continue to review on nose anatomy as I began to explore more in finer detail, such as the connection between lateral cartilage and greater alab cartilage. Although it's wise to not keep studying the same things in fear of burnout, this nose anatomy is so intriguing to me in the construction of it so I often practice upon it.

I began to explore cartoon facial structure to split away from my cartoon work and attempt to move toward other styles. When exploring, to ensure that I don't get too attached with Ctrl+Z, I deconstruct other artist's facial cartoon work digitally and then reconstruct it back on my drawing sketch book. From that, I was kinda shocked on how bad I am on paper as I'm so used to drawing digitally. But going pretty well on paper now.

Aside from that, I haven't done much on perspective as I continue to focus more on facial anatomy.

TD Doodle

This week, I tried more dynamic pose that incorporates muscle study as TD is not well known for its muscle anatomy (aside from key characters such as Ryan). So it's a mixture of TD anatomy I known before and cartoon muscle anatomy to bring in my taste in TD style.

TD NBA

Continue with my plan of 1 TD NBA work per week, I worked and completed Stephanie's Warriors vs Leshawn's Nuggets piece. I like this pace so far as it allows me to work on my art study and personal art project at the same time.

Look towards Next Week

I'm more optimistic for next week as I begin to have a good structure on both studying and work on personal art projects. So in summary, my aim for this week is:

• Work on mouth and eye anatomy
  • Continue on my morning doodle habit
  • Just have fun.

Another week done! Thx for reading.

[Gordon003]

Fortnightly Blog #7 (23/5/22 - 5/6/22)

I have decided to do the art blog fortnightly rather than weekly for 2 reasons:

• My current job is demanding a lot from me (not bc I'm stressed but it offers me a good mental challenge to solve it efficiently) so I don't have energy to continue on night time.
• I haven't done much art study which contributes to similar art blog from different weeks.

But it won't means that I won't stop doing art blog as I still feel like it's a good reference point for my past self to see how far I came from. Anyway, about the last 2 weeks...

Update

Art School

I believed that I'm done with facial studies so I basically combine them all together into one. I still rely on the need to trace over the reference image to pinpoint particular position of each part but I still have a lot of trouble with shadowing the face and each part.

I think I'm way too quick and just want to get it done with as it' s the last stage. However, I don't have much experience in blending explained in Photoshop 2 so I feel that I need to go back to understanding how to blend colours digitally.

Future wise, I don't see much aside from continuing to practice the anatomy and knowledge of it consistently to drain it to my brain.

TD Doodle

Still going strongly with my doodle as I continue to meet my goal of 5 doodles per week with the aim of finding gesture and extreme pose rather than details and accuracy. I also aim to avoid doing chicken scratch and just have fun with the long stroke when possible.

I liked one of my doodles so much I decided to digitise it and then apply basic background like the video Marc Brunet explained in a video when we are too lazy to work on background

TD x NBA

For TD x NBA, I have made the decision to not continue it as I lost the motivation to simply continue working on it. Along with the facts that not much interest are interested in this combo, I feel like I should save my energy for other projects that have both my interest and social interest in key groups.

Outlook towards the next 2 weeks

So a mix-mix for the last 2 weeks as one personal project was unfinished due to lack of motivation while another one of facial anatomy arises! So in summary, my aim for the next 2 weeks are:

• Practice Facial Anatomy -> try to do without tracing over reference image
• Continue to read art books on anatomy
• Continue on with morning doodle havit

Hope i make good progress the next 2 work, both art-wise and career-wise. I see you in 2 weeks! Thx for reading.

[Gordon003]

Fortnightly Blog #8 (6/6/22 - 19/6/22)

The last 2 weeks has been nothing but new stuff as not only I continue to practice but also continue to read art books more consistently and bought CSP via summer sale. Let expand more into it below.

Update

Art School

I'm confident that I have fully watched the whole video on facial anatomy and could practice without rewatching key parts of video again.

I still feel kinda weak on the eyes but I could now do the past challenging parts which are the nose and ears. To continue with practice, I also try some shading, albeit looks kinda basic and not much blending between layers.

(Ignore the orange pencil drawing as it's pre-done by somebody else in the image)

Thinking about my goals, I feel like I should be good to finally start of perspective while practising and improving on facial anatomy. Ideally, I would like to stop drawing on reference image and try to visualise it in my mind.

TD Doodle

The doodle is going strong as I continue to produce 5 doodles per week. I have changed in 2 ways:

• Try to exaggerate the pose. Find the main essence of the gesture and push it to the limit.
• Weekend not necessary for TD doodles as I will be doing art throughout the whole day any way.

With those in my mindset, this will continue as usual.

Art Books

I started to set up a habit of reading art books, not for visual purpose but rather a look into the mental mindset of artist, in particular Disney animator.

I borrowed a book called "Drawn to Life" from Walt Stanchfield which shows all lecture notes from Disney classes.

Each page is random and shouldn't be read in order so I read page which particularly troubled me at random time. So I read about why gesture drawing isn't easy and the foundation of first impression. I will break it down in points.

Gesture Drawing ain't easy

• Drawing process is similar to driving a car (which I do a lot)
• First Impression (Art) = Destination? (Car)
• Observe before you draw (Art) = Observe the next part of road before doing (Car)
• We have a list of prerequisites before we draw every line (e.g. check current shading looks good). Initially troubling, it will eventually become second nature.

First Impression

• Important to keep your first impression throughout the whole drawing - don't replace, reinforce it with new observation.
• Switch and analyse between different modes
  • Colour, Light/Dark, Mass, 3D Perspective
• RHS of your brain shows the first impression, the LHS will eventually comes with detail requirement
  • If LHS is shouting to you to add detail (e.g. bump), make a new observation to refresh the first impression.

I aim to read around 2 notes/pages per day which should take around 30 mins.

CSP - Clip Studio Pro

I heard from a lot of artists, in particular from Discord and YT, that CSP is near Photoshop level for digital arts. Thanks to the summer sale with 40% off, I took a punt and decide to buy it to replace my Sai 2 usage.

To my surprise, I don't need to relearn a lot as it combines both Photoshop layout (which I'm familiar with) and Sai 2 brush control and setting (albeit more complicated). Only trouble I have is the express key setting on my tablet but it should be good once I get used to it.

So yeah, can't wait to continue using CSP!

Outlook towards the next 2 weeks

A lot of events occurred in those 2 weeks. Using CSP means some adjustment times but eventually, I will be able to continue studying. In summary, my aim of next 2 weeks are:
- Get used to Clip Studio Pro
- Continue on facial anatomy practice
- Continue on shading and blending practice
- Have a look at perspective in T2.

[Lockenheim]

Keep up the good work Gordon! Nice job!

[Gordon003]

Fortnightly Blog #9 (20/6/22 - 4/7/22)

The last 2 weeks have been kinda frustrating as while I haven't done much art than I expected due to my job workload but I have reviewed my view on art progress via reading my art books.

Update

Art School

I haven't done much art study as I didn't have much time and focused most of my time on learning and understanding Clip Studio Pro. I wish I could say more but that's the best I could do while mostly checking that my app work is going well as expected.

TD Doodle

The doodle is going strong as I continue to produce 5 doodles per week. Nothing much to report aside from continuing to be more expressive and adding shading.

Art Books

I continue to read more from "Drawn to Life" from Walt Stanchfield, not for art skill but rather trying to understand how to see and view art. Key observation I made:

• Drawing for animation is translating an action into drawing form so audience can retranslate those drawings into an experience of that action. You want to replicate the exact action - use a camera.

• The human body structure is a bit like flexible - solid - flexible basis.

• Head (Solid) -> Neck (Flexible) -> Chest (Solid) -> Waist (Flexible) etc..

I continue to explore more art books and seek in other genre aside from cartoon.

CSP

i have spent nearly a week on CSP and as day goes on, feel more and more impressed with how much power CSP contains. In particular, I love the brush control and how I can import particular type from the store, even the one from Photoshop downloaded from Chrome.

I have rarely used Sai now but I still can come back to it if for some reason I don't feel like using CSP.

Outlook towards the next 2 weeks

Those past 2 weeks was particularly hard for non-art reason. Nevertheless, I have become more comfortable with CSP which is the main objective set in the last art blog. However, most of my goals haven't met and require further revision. So my goals for the next 2 weeks are:

• Continue on facial anatomy practice
• Continue on shading and blending practice
• Continue on reading more art books not just on process but mentally.

[Gordon003]

Fortnightly Blog #10 - 11 (5/7/22 - 31/7/22)

The last 4 weeks was the most challenging not only in technical career but also on my art motivation as I questioned myself on what I want to do in art and whether I'm enjoying art at all with the personal push to keep doing art study.

Update

Art School

This is the problem for me as I haven't practiced at all on my facial anatomy skill. I haven't dedicated much time on faciai construction as I was more interested in both cartoon pose and gestural pose which you will see later.

If there's one good thing I did in the last weeks, the Loomis head construction made me realise that I couldn't visualise the circumference of a sphere. As a result, I was encouraged to practice drawing Loomis head construction in all angles. Although I haven't finished it, I slowly start to get better at drawing lines to depict the middle of facial construction.

Rather than facial construction, I was more focused on the gestural and figure drawing which was the initial reason I got into non-cartoon art. I began to start some 1 minutes gesture drawing but I suddenly realise that I don't really understand a body as I was simply drawing the outline of their body; aka tracing.

It wasn't till I read a book called FORCE by Michael Mattesi who explained how to visualise and draw the inner energy or rhythm of a pose to effectively maximise the value and our understanding of the pose.

Although I have only started reading the first chapter of his book which talks about rhythm and momentum depicted in our human pose, I began to have better feeling of the body energy which can be seen via 2 comparisons before and after.

Art school wise, I feel that it's better to go right back to the start of facial anatomy as I pretty much forgot most technique on constructing particular parts.

The lack of art studying facial construction raised the question on whether I want to continue art in a serious manner as my recent work is more into my expression than construction. Hence, I planned to continue on facial construction albeit on less expectation (e.g. complete whole face in 1 month) and focus more on trying to understand why draw in that way.

TD Doodle

Aided by my gestural reading and understanding, I start to be more expressive with my doodles as I begin to draft more and experiment around with exaggerated pose. As a result, my doodles is feeling less rigid which is evident in Total Drama and is more fluid which kinda describe my style now - bring fluidity simplistic work.

Outlook towards the next 2 weeks

Given that the last 4 weeks was nothing but lack of serious art motivation, I give myself much more lenient expectation as I want to focus more on personal art rather than study.

• Restart of facial construction but take it more slowly
• Continue on TD Doodles with more experimentation
• Continue to read on FOCUS to help you make expressive gestural drawing within the body flow

Overall, I feel those are some lenient goals for me but let see in 2 weeks. Thx for reading my blog!

[Lockenheim]

Very lovely work! Especially the head sheet! Really great job!